About this place
The Stolperstein for Pavel Sonnenschein is one of four brass "stumbling stones" set into the pavement on Malinovského náměstí in Brno, part of German artist Gunter Demnig's Europe-wide memorial project marking the last freely chosen home of a victim of Nazi persecution. This particular stone bears the name of a boy who was only thirteen years old when he was murdered at Auschwitz.
Who was Pavel Sonnenschein?
Pavel (sometimes recorded as Paul) Sonnenschein was born on 9 April 1931 in Brno. He was the younger son of Dr. Hugo Sonnenschein, a physician specializing in mental and nervous disorders who worked as a junior doctor at the regional hospital in Brno, and Trude (Gertrude) Sonnenschein, née Mayer. The family lived at what is today Malinovského náměstí 5, in the city centre.
What do we know about his family?
Pavel had an older brother, Otto, born in 1927. All four family members — the parents and both sons — were registered as Jewish under the wartime racial laws and remained at the same Brno address until the deportation orders came.
What happened to him during the Holocaust?
On 8 April 1942, Pavel was deported from Brno to the Terezín ghetto on transport Ai, alongside his parents, who travelled on the same transport under numbers immediately preceding his own. More than two years later, on 23 October 1944, he was put on a further transport, marked Et, from Terezín to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. There, at just thirteen years old, he was murdered together with his parents. His older brother Otto survived the war — in the final weeks of the conflict he escaped from an evacuation transport of prisoners and lived to see liberation, later using the surname Slunský.
Why are there four stones at this address?
Set side by side in the same stretch of pavement are four Stolpersteine — for Hugo, Trude, Pavel, and Otto Sonnenschein. They were unveiled together on 29 October 2012. It is one of the relatively rare cases where stumbling stones form a small, unified memorial to an entire family rather than to a single individual.
Where is this Stolperstein?
The stone is set into the pavement on Malinovského náměstí in central Brno, at coordinates 49.19565 N, 16.613169 E, directly beside the other three stones for the Sonnenschein family. Like most Stolpersteine, it is small and flush with the paving stones around it — easy to miss unless you look down.
Frequently asked questions
How old was Pavel Sonnenschein when he died? Thirteen. He was born in April 1931 and was murdered at Auschwitz after 23 October 1944.
Did anyone in his family survive? Yes — his older brother Otto survived the war by escaping an evacuation transport in its final weeks. His parents and Pavel himself were murdered.
Why are several Stolpersteine placed together here? Because they commemorate an entire family who lived at this address — the parents and their two sons, deported together on the same transports in 1942 and 1944.
What is a Stolperstein? A small brass memorial plaque set into the pavement at the last freely chosen home of a victim of Nazi persecution — a project started by German artist Gunter Demnig in the 1990s and now found across Europe.
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